Title: “Sweet Poison: How Sugar Became the New Health Enemy”
Introduction: It’s in your coffee, in your bread, in your peanut butter, even in your salad dressing. Sugar is hiding in your food everywhere. And it’s quietly undermining your health.
How Sugar Affects the Body
Scientific studies cite 3 main areas where sugar affects body metabolism.
1. Spikes in insulin levels, leading to insulin resistance: Insulin is a hormone that is needed by the human body for sugar metabolism . Every time sugar is consumed, insulin is produced by the pancreas and released into the blood stream to enable its metabolism. Large sugar consumption leads to increased insulin production. Frequent sugar consumption leads to a quasi-constant insulin production and high levels in the blood stream most of the time. The end result is insulin resistance; a situation where your muscles, fat and liver cells don’t respond, as they should to insulin, thus disrupting blood sugar regulation. Obesity and Type 2 diabetes are some of the results of insulin resistance.
2. Encourages fat storage, particularly around the liver. Excessive and too frequent sugar consumption leads to fat storage, especially around the liver. Excessive fat storage around the liver impairs liver function, liver scarring, cirrhosis and even liver cancer.
3. Fuels inflammation, a root cause of many diseases: Inflammation is the body’s normal response to injury or infection. It is a situation that should be short lived and ended once the injury or infection is brought under control. Chronic inflammation is harmful. However, this is what happens when inflammation persists for months or even years. Constant consumption and high sugar levels in the blood fuels inflammation, which can lead to chronic situations.
Constant and Excessive sugar consumption can lead to any or all 4 of the following conditions.
- Type 2 diabetes.
- Heart disease.
- Fatty liver.
- Mood swings and depression.
How to Reduce Sugar Intake
1. Read labels on all food packaging that you intend to buy. Watch out for words like syrups, sucrose, dextrose, glucose, fructose, high content fructose content, etc. as they all stand for different forms of sugar.
2. Choose whole fruits over juices. Fruit juices are often laced with added sugar.
3. Choose natural sweeteners if possible (miracle berry, stevia, monk fruit) but be aware of their advantages and disadvantages too.
Conclusion: Cutting levels of sugar consumed on a daily basis is one of the smartest moves you can make for your well-being and life-long health.
